random thoughts on church and life

I betook myself to the Coptic Pascha evening service tonight after work. I missed Palm Sunday service through falling asleep post-call, and not being able to muster the energy to get myself out of bed after a 15min nap. So I felt bad about that, and I considered giving up on the enterprise of keeping Pascha and working 13-15hrs a day at the same time. But then there wouldn’t be an Easter that meant anything to me, and that would ruin the whole year, and that would be pretty bad.

So I dragged myself to church after work, not entirely thrilled about a 1hr round trip, and two hours of service (allowing for missing the first hour, and skipping the last 45min due to the sermon being entirely in Arabic).

Somebody please kick me the next time I consider missing Coptic church. I was so glad to be there. I didn’t know many of the people, and I didn’t have a service book. But we were praising God and commemorating Christ’s passion, and there is nothing better in the world.

Thine is the power, the glory, the blessing, and the majesty, forever, Amen.
Emmanuel, our God and our King.
Thine is the power, the glory, the blessing, and the majesty, forever, Amen.
My Lord Jesus Christ, my Good Savior.
The Lord is my strength and my song, and has become my salvation.
Thine is the power, the glory, the blessing, and the majesty, forever, Amen.

The Copts are my identity, one of the only things about me that’s still the same at the end of this year. At that church, everything is right and in order.

(Man cannot live by bread alone; and neither can one get by entirely with Presbyterian church services, especially the strict ones. They’re missing something, like icons and incense and color and music. I should point that out to the elders of the church I’ve been going to. The reaction at least would be interesting.)